Decorative Dietary Fiber? Yep.

A few years back, when I first started juicing, I ran across an unusual piece of fruit. Tried it, loved it, but didn't get any photos.

Yesterday, I found the fruit at my local grocery store. Yay!

This is the dragon fruit. Or the pitaya.

Top: fruit has been removed
Bottom: Fruit still in the rind

When I was adding my own photos for this post, I found this one online.

Notice that mine didn't have this color of meat inside. Huh.

Now I want to find a piece of fruit with that deeper color of meat. Pretty. By the way, the source for that photo has an awesome smoothie recipe!

Other than being so very, very pretty, it's got a lot of dietary and tasty benefits:

• High in fiber
• Low in calories
• Low in cholesterol 
• Very "meaty" 
• Good source of antioxidants
• Pleasant taste (sort of like a blander kiwi fruit)

Here is a link to more info about and benefits of the fruit. I didn't even know about the fats and Vitamin C until I saw this page. 

If you are thinking of trying it, these links could be useful:

• Some caloric info and recipes
• How to choose, cut and serve the fruit
• Wandering Chopsticks has a recipe I can't wait to try
• Golubka Kitchen even has a salad recipe

So, there are a lot of ways to use this fruit. I kind of wish I could just shellac the shell and use it as decoration! 

Of course, it's kind of pricey. Everything tends to be more expensive up here, but I'm always surprised at the close to $9.00/lb price for this fruit. Thankfully, one piece is enough for at least 2  or 3 uses in juicing.

The advantage to this being such a pretty piece of fruit is that the shell can be used when serving it. 

(source)

(source)

If anyone has any other recipes, let me know.

Peace

--Free